Chapter 23 #2
In the bedroom doorway, she paused. “I’m going,” she said, her voice steady, even when her pulse was not, especially when she added, “But I’d rather not go alone.”
When she disappeared inside, she left the door open behind her.
He didn’t follow.
She heard him pacing. Stopping. Starting again. Like he was fighting himself.
Her pulse climbed with every passing second.
When he appeared in the doorway, she was halfway through changing, in only her bra and panties, her good ones, thankfully.
He stopped dead. His gaze didn’t skim down her body; it locked onto her face. “Are you sure?”
Julia nodded. “I’m sure.”
“Thank fuck,” he breathed as he closed the distance fast. One hand slid into her hair, the other dipped into the back of her panties and palmed her ass. She grabbed the front of his shirt as he lifted her against him and kissed her again.
This time, he didn’t stop. It deepened when she opened for him, his grip tightening, angling her head how he wanted it.
Not rough. Just certain. The distinction mattered, as if he’d already decided how this would go and was simply executing the plan.
Without breaking the kiss, Leland walked her backward, one measured step at a time, until the backs of her knees met the edge of the bed. She sat and looked up at him in the light spilling through the doorway.
Breathing faster, he looked down at her the way he might look at a problem he’d already solved. Something about it made her feel more exposed than her state of undress. Visible. Entirely seen.
He ran his thumb along her collarbone, moving lower to trace the lace edging her bra. “I’ve been thinking about this since the second day,” he said. “When you came to breakfast in my T-shirt.”
“That’s a little unsettling.”
“I know.” He unhooked her bra and slid it off her in one smooth motion. The humid air settled heavy against her skin.
He cupped her breast, and her nipple grew taut beneath the sweep of his thumb. Then he pressed her back onto the bed. Her panties came down, the fabric a whisper along her thighs, gone before she fully registered it. His shirt joined it on the floor.
He came down over her, kissing her throat, her collarbone, each trembling nipple, working his way down her body with the same quiet patience he seemed to apply to everything.
He spread her legs, palms flat against her inner thighs, pressing them open and holding them there as he looked at her intimately.
She was too aroused to be self-conscious. The slight roughness of his fingertips against her sensitive skin made her hips lift toward him before she could stop herself.
She could’ve sworn she felt his smile on her skin. “Patience,” he murmured. “I’ll get you there.”
His deep voice and the promise of pleasure were all it took. Her breath left her in a long exhale, her hands twisting in the sheets.
Leland’s mouth found hers. The steady pressure of his tongue returned to the same spot again and again. He wasn’t rushing. He’d settled in with no plans to go anywhere.
When her hips rolled, he brought his forearm across them, pinning her to the mattress.
She felt the weight of it, a warm, unyielding pressure that made a statement.
He had her exactly where he wanted her. She could have changed that with a single word, but heaven help her, she didn’t want to. It made her clench around nothing.
He read her reaction perfectly. While his tongue worked her clit with steady pressure, two fingers curled into her, finding what he sought on the first attempt. She stopped being quiet after that.
She bucked against his restraining arm while the pressure built past bearing, and she came with her head thrown back, his name too loud for the small room.
He didn’t ease off until the last shudder subsided. Only then did his grip relax.
She was still breathing hard when he moved over her. She felt him against her thigh, thick and ready, and thought yes, even after just coming, with an eagerness that surprised her.
“Still good?” he asked.
Julia nodded and breathed, “You’ll be the first to know if I’m not.”
A short exhale, almost a laugh, before he dipped his head and kissed her. She tasted herself on his lips.
“Be right back,” he murmured before disappearing into the bathroom.
He returned naked and more than ready, settling his weight between her thighs. When he finally pushed into her, she made a sound she hadn’t planned. He stilled, buried fully inside her, and dropped his forehead to hers.
“Julia…”
Just her name. Rougher than she’d ever heard it.
He held there, motionless, as her body stretched around him. When her hands stopped gripping and began touching, stroking up his back, one threading into his hair, he finally moved.
The storm gusted against the window. The light from the doorway flickered. They barely noticed.
He kept the pace slow, a drag and roll she felt deep in her spine. Somewhere beneath the pleasure, she understood why. Leland approached everything with purpose. And right now, his purpose was her.
Slick and swollen and still sensitive from before, he used that, adjusting his angle until her nails found his back.
Something shifted. The measured pace broke into a harder drive, and another. He groaned against her throat, rough and unguarded, and his hand slid between them, his thumb finding her clit.
When she came apart this time, her body seized around him, clenching in waves that rolled through her before she could brace for them. Her fingers dug into the muscles of his shoulders, holding on.
Leland followed seconds later, burying himself fully with one last thrust. He pulsed inside her as a deep, husky groan tore loose.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. The storm kept up beyond the windows, but inside the room, everything felt suspended.
His weight settled over her slowly, his breathing easing against her shoulder. The hand in her hair loosened, and his heartbeat steadied against her chest.
Julia inhaled and closed her eyes. Not peacefully but with the terrifying awareness that no matter what this was, whatever it turned out to be in the morning, she still wanted him, and that wanting was going to be impossible to outrun.